Martial Arts and Job Applications - Bad Bedfellows?

2/04/2005 5:22pm,

Have any of you have applied for a white collar job and listed Martial Arts under interests? Do you think doing so will be detrimental to the application? Lastly, how would you explain why you are interested in the Martial Arts to the interviewer?

Telling them you have been training in ____ MA for ___ <B>years</B> looks better.

2nd degree BB in ____ can actually help.

I don't know if you've ever heard about him, but one the most successful CEO's in the US in recent years was 'Chainsaw' Al Dunlap. He was a tough hombre, who was responsible for laying off thousands of people. He liked to hire guys with their BB because he knew that at least they had accomplished something useful in their lives.

He did not feel the same way about law school or MBA grads.

Anyone who knows anything about MA knows it takes a lot of work to be in an MA and stay committed to it. Those who don't will be impressed by the BB.

Originally posted by pauli

i was once told that "do" means wrecking people's shit for your own philosophical betterment.

Originally posted by melvin_peebles

I could be mistaking dumbness for delusion. I'll have to go dig out my DSM IV. It's great to have stumbled upon this site. The rich fauna and flora of mental dysfunction that exists in the martial arts is amazing. It's like the Galapagos.

Comment

It can go one of two ways... I had two interviews at the same company, but different departments. In one, the interviewer looked at my hobbies and asked what my main driving force was. I relied with "Supressed violence". I didn't get the job.
In the other interview, when he asked about my hobbies I told a number of funny anecdotes about violence. I got the job.
At my current job, I only got the job because I trained with one of the staff (he basically asked when I could start work) and half the IT department did martial arts of some description.

Comment

Resumes for a professional job that have irrelevant material on them have allways looked funny to me. If you're applying to be a software developer, for example, you resume should list your RELEVANT skills and experience. Anyone with a decent background is going to have trouble fitting his job history and skillset into a reasonable amount of space anyways without adding fluff like "interested in martial arts".

Comment

Not if it asks for interests on the job application. Of course if you were applying for an IT or Software Deveolpment position, putting in the past experiance and/or qualifications area that you were the University's [insert MA here] Club instructor, or that you worked in a pet store when you were 16 would be a waste of time, because it's irrelevant. However if they ask for seemingly irrelevant information such as hobbies, interests, leisure activities, then why not inform them if martial arts is a passion of yours. I'm sure as long as you don't put, "your mom." you'll be fine.

Comment

I'm applying for government work; I approached mentioned only my martial arts experiene as an assistant instructor and wrote out the various accomplishments in that (trained so and so students to a so and so level, led so and so students at so and so tournament) and the duties performed as such (organizing and overseeing practices, providing group and personal instruction based on a student's request or observed area of difficulty, conflict resolution, etc). The career counselours here ate it up, and the government recruiter who interviewed me seemed to like it a lot too.

If you don't have some sort of a "title" as it applies to MA, I suppose it isn't as good a thing to list. This has basically been my one "job" that has taught me anything over the years- stockboy teaches shit all about nothing. I think as I'm applying for entry level work or een just government internships, this looks like good exp.

I think it's best to avoid mentioning violence; though I did relate the story of pwning an overly agressive newb for beating on the other newbs and basically being a dick and how he has since gone onto become a good student as something I am proud of..... I of course worded it much better than here.

I suppose the real proof will be if I actually get these jobs. So maybe you should take my experience for the limitted little bit that it is and play it safe.

Comment

I wouldn't list it because "I love to kick ass and get the shit beat ouf of me on a regular basis AND PAY FOR IT". Fitness and self-discipline are good reasons.

Does this apply to universities? When I transfer over to a 4-year, I want to put down my TKD and now BJJ experience. Hopefully I'll have gone to a few BJJ tourneys by then, so I can at least say I compete. :)

Comment

I have always gotten good results. It helps balance the more academic award type thing and make me a fuller person.

And that's when I figured out that tears couldn't make somebody who was dead alive again. There's another thing to learn about tears, they can't make somebody who doesn't love you any more love you again. It's the same with prayers. I wonder how much of their lives people waste crying and praying to God. If you ask me, the devil makes more sense than God does. I can at least see why people would want him around. It's good to have somebody to blame for the bad stuff they do. Maybe God's there because people get scared of all the bad stuff they do. They figure that God and the Devil are always playing this game of tug-of-war game with them. And they never know which side they're gonna wind up on. I guess that tug-of-war idea explains how sometimes, even when people try to do something good, it still turns out bad.